AMD ATI Radeon 3850 &amp; 3870 review -
Page 4 - Photos #1

AMD Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4

On the next few pages we'll show you some photos. The images were taken at 2560x1920 pixels and then scaled down. The camera used was a Sony DCS-F707 5.1 MegaPixel.

Snazzy. We start off with the reference model from AMD. That is one massive cooler isn't it?, don't be scared by it though... it's pretty silent. The card is launching at a 249 USD suggested retail price. Rest assured, it'll sell in e-tail for roughly 225 USD pretty soon. That's a lot of horsepower for a card in this price-range. Very obvious it has a two slot cooling solution. And can I just say that I love the Ruby stickers on there ?

The cooling has been updated from the 2900 XT model and while it still could make a lot of noise, it doesn't. When you startup your PC you'll hear a blowdryer like sound for a couple of seconds, but after a couple of seconds everything goes silent, scouts honour.

Here we can see the two DVI connectors, which both have dual-link support (HDCP capable). You might think "hmm, is that needed?" Yes it is. High-Def screens and high-resolution monitors are the key issues here. Dual link DVI pins effectively double the power of transmission and provide an increase of speed and signal quality; i.e. a DVI single link 60-Hz LCD can display a resolution of 1920 x 1080, while a DVI dual link can display a resolution up-to 2560x1200 and I believe this to can go even higher.

With the help of the supplied DVI to HDMI adapter you can connect the card towards a HDMI HD Ready television or monitor for good picture quality and as explained, sound over HDMI. Right, let's flip the card around.

Aah yes, much better. Here we have the external power connectors. You connect your power supply to this 6-pin power connector. The previous 2900 model consumed wahaaay more power and needed a 6-pin power connectors and then another 8-pin power connector. A thing of the past as this cards TDP is at roughly 105 Watts maximum. See, power consumption has been cut in half.

Now if you decide to go the guru path of righteousness (read: Crossfire) then please understand you'll need to connect both the CF bridges. The Crossfire connectors will be supplied with the graphics cards, by the way. One per card. As stated, we are awaiting a new test system (AMD Phenom based) and then will have a close look at the new Crossfire options and obviously, performance.

AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB reviewToday a test and review on the new AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB. Obviously ATI is releasing a 1GB model to compete with the new Core 216 version of that GeForce GTX 260. The 4870 series really diggs that GDDR5 memory bandwidth, and what's the cheapest thing to do to gain some extra performance ? Increase the framebuffer volume. Now that by itself is not going to work miracles, yet in memory limited situations (loads of high quality textures, filtering and AA modes) it will help you here and there. And a little bit of extra bite is all the product needs to get beat that Core 216 card again.

AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850 CrossfireA review with Crossfire results as well, on the all new Radeon HD 4850 from Force3D and PowerColor. Definitely a review worth reading.

AMD ATI Radeon 3850 & 3870 reviewToday AMD will launch the Radeon 3000 series products, in specifically the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870. I'll give you a quick hint, these cards are roughly as fast a Radeon HD 2900 XT .. yet they are priced a very promising level; how does a price range of 149 to 249 USD sound ? See, performance wise a 149 USD Radeon HD 3850 will wipe the floor with the entire competitors GeForce 8500/8600 series easily and the 3870 will put up a great fight with the 8800 GTS. With new releases often also we can see a couple of new tricks. Today's announced products will see light of in the form of DirectX 10.1 support, the new UVD (video de/encoding) engine is now integrated opposed to the 2900 XT which didn't have it. Full PCI-Express 2.0 support, and a die-size based on 55nm to die for.